Here are the photos of our little muchkin and the rest of the clan.

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Today, Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 5:30AM, the Eutsey household added a new member, a new 8lb, 10oz, 22in. baby boy named Rilian Thane.  

This little man has been a tough cookie.  We thought originally that he was going to come on Feb. 12.  Jen was having some pretty consistent contractions in the morning, but by mid afternoon they had all but died away.  That made for a nervous work week for me coming up, knowing that it could literally be any minute that I could get the call. 

I didn’t get any more warning until Thursday.  Once again, I stayed home from work thinking that the baby was on it’s way.  Once again everything fizzled for that day.  However, Jen was convinced that Friday was the day and insisted I stay home again, which, considering the circumstances, I was all gung-ho to do.

Jen and I took advantage of the two days that I had off of work.  My mom had come over Thursday morning to look after the other three kids while we were at the hospital.  Since we were waiting for the baby to make his move we decided to go out to lunch and walk the Monroeville Mall, which was immortalized in the original George Romero classic Dawn of the Dead.  However, for Thursday, the mall walk didn’t do the trick, but our lunch at Corino’s was rather nice.

Friday was more of the same, eating lunch at Primanti Brothers in Monroeville and going to Target, Marshalls and Circuit City (it’s a shame that they are going out of business, but considering that I can still get a Panisonic 42” plasma cheaper on NewEgg,com goes to show you why that happened) to do our walking.

When we got home we had a nice dinner with the family, I don’t recall the meal, but it wasn’t some high falutin’ thing, just something simple, but nice.  We settled down for the evening waiting for our shows to come on, Dollhouse at 9 and Battlestar Galactica at 10.  We then settled in for sleep, knowing that it wasn’t going to last the night.

Jen woke me up at 2am to get prepared to take her to the hospital.  She had been in the shower since Midnight and was starting to have contractions closer and closer together.  So we packed up, let my mom know we were going and took off for the hospital.

A couple of hours and some details that are best left out later, we have Rilian!

Later that morning I go home and pick up the kids and take them to meet their brother.  For the time being I only have a couple pictures of Thorin which are very entertaining, well, because that is what he is.  Entertaining or distracting. 

My next post is going to be a photo gallery of sorts, so look forward to that…

Well, the Dollhouse premier has come and gone and I am torn.

I'm torn between impressed and confussed.  

Let me explain.  If I knew nothing of the premise of this series, I would be a little dismayed.  Eliza Dusku, no matter how cute she is, is not a great actress, and if she was going to continue to only be the maliable subject of manipulation that she was in episode 1, then this series will be short lived.  Short lived because the average viewer won't understand that this is not the status quo.

I'm impressed because I do know the premise of the show, which is that after every "treatment" to wipe out Echo's memory that she will start to have some self realization of who she really is.  This is when the good stuff will start to happen.  I hope that Fox allows the series to get to that point.  We all know Fox's history with Joss Wedon Sci-Fi (see Firefly - The Complete Series.)  I mean, how many shows that were cut short before the fist season was even over cause such an uproar that they eventually make a movie (Serenity (Collector's Edition)) based on the series, just to add closure.

Knowing the brilliance of Wedon and the basic premise of the show, I was impressed that Joss resisted the temptation to reveal too much in this episode.  However, for the sake of keeping the series moving forward without the potential ban hammer of Fox hitting, I hope that Echo's memories start coming back before too long, give the casual viewer hope that something is going to be different in the long run.

Overall, I will give the premier 3.5 out of 5 stars.  The potential for greatness is there, now lets see it come to fruition.

ConsultUSA, the company that I work for, is now looking for 4 ASP.Net Developers at one of our clients.  This is a great opportunity to come on with ConsultUSA while it is in a definite upswing.  I was at this particular client before as well.  The client is not going any where, they are as stable as they come and will probably continue to grow, even in this down economy.

If you or anyone you know is looking for a change and the opportunity to get a position that will encourage growth and further opportunity, let me know.  Send me your resume and salary requirements and I'll get one of our recruiters to reach out to you.

Thanks,

Shaun

This weekend was a mix of emotions for me. First the good. The Pittsburgh Steelers (Pixburg Stillers in Pittsburgh-eese) won the Super Bowl! Yea, I'm from the 'burgh and I'm a Steelers fan, so, I'm happy to say it, Pittsburgh Sixburgh, baby!

The second thing, and one that is far more sobering, one of my neighbors was killed in a house fire on Saturday.

Here's my experience with the fire: As the wife, kids and I were sitting down to eat, the power went out in our house. They quickly came back on, so I thought nothing of it until the power went back off a few seconds later. We scampered for some candles and flash lights and I hunkered the wife and kids into the master bedroom, where they could keep warm and safe. I then went outside to see what was happening. I thought that perhaps there was an accident outside and wanted to make sure that everything was being taken care of.

As I exited the house one of the fire workers passed my house (it wasn't one of the firetrucks, but they did have flashing lights.) I followed them up the street until I saw some of my other neighbors standing up on the hill, the next block up. I went up and saw the house burning, smoke pouring out of the roof and chimney. Soon after I got up the hill the fire trucks started to arrive. It was then that I discovered a weakness in my neighborhoods infrastructure. We have one fire hydrant at the end of my block. We had a good 6 fire trucks show up to help with the fire. Unfortunately, only one of the trucks could attach to the hydrant. This brought into stark contrast. If I have a fire at my house, only one truck will be able to be used to supply water to my home.

Anyway, the neighbors and I watched the firemen do their work. It's more impressive watching it than you would think. These brave men, came to the house, knocked out all of the windows, which filled the night sky with billowing smoke, and three of them climbed up on the roof with chain saws and opened up the roof to give the smoke even more places to escape the house. Several of these brave men entered into the house, made their way to the basement and extracted the body of the owner out, racing her to the awaiting ambulance. Alas, it was was too late and she was already dead.

Several things occurred to me as I watched the proceedings:

1. When an power line transformer blows up it creates a lot of ash.  The transformer that was right by the burning house blew a pretty impressive fireball out the top, accourding to one of the neighbors who lives on the same block as the burning house.
2. When it's 17 degrees out, it doesn't take long for a house to go from 70 degrees to 59 degrees.
3. Allegheny Power has our neighborhood wired up pretty good, they redirected power from another block to return power to my block before the fire trucks even cleared my street.
4. The sadest part of this whole ordeal is that I didn't even know her name or the names of most of the people that were up on the hill watching the fire.  I've lived in my house for 8 years and I didn't know most of the people in my neighborhood.  I guess it primarily because those people don't have kids that are near my kids age.  I think I will have to remedy that.  Unfortunately, for one of my neighbors it is too late.

Like I said, this was a very emotional weekend.  It really put things into perspective.  More than the Super Bowl, which was a great game, but still, just a game, the fire will change the way I live my life.  In the long run, this will be a banner weekend for me.  If I can get to know my neighbors and cherish my family even more, I think this was a good thing, at least in my life.  Do I think it's a good thing in total?  No.  But anything that forces a person to grow is good in the long run.

To my readers.  When you see your family tonight, give them an extra big hug and let them know that you love them.  You never know when it will be the last time you get the chance to do that, so take every opportunity you have.  You will never regret puring too much love onto your family, but you will regret it mightily if you don't.

Be well and God Bless.